knocked him into the snow. Its trunk was as big around as his leg, and he lay there, catching his breath. Henry reached down and grabbed the tree, flung it aside, took a fistful of Day’s torn overcoat in his massive paw, and pulled the inspector to his feet.
“Thank you, Henry.”
“What happened, do you think?”
“This village. They’ve dug tunnels all under it, chiseled out the coal in the ground. Everything’s sinking now. There’s nothing to hold it all up.”
“That tree didn’t sink; it fell.”
“Its roots weren’t anchored. It was top-heavy.”
“Other trees fell, too. Look.”
“Indeed.”
They had left the road, cut cross-country toward the train depot, hoping to make better time, but the snow was deeper here and it had been a hard, slow slog. Day had lost count of the tremors they’d felt, but the tree line was a shaggy crosshatch of felled trees, their roots now exposed to the air like some other hidden forest made suddenly visible and vulnerable.
“Look.” Henry pointed through the grey at the village on the other side of the road, not far, but in another world, on the distant horizon, made so by the storm.
Day squinted and saw a fuzz of smoke. He galumphed along through the snow hoping for a better view. “Henry, is that the inn?”
“It’s a tree, sir. A big one.”
“But under the tree, Henry?”
“Under the tree, that’s a house, but it’s all gone now, isn’t it?”
“Henry, that’s the inn. Nevil’s in there! And Dr Kingsley!”
Day galloped ahead, sending sprays of powder up on either side, but not moving very quickly despite the energy he was expending. Henry opened his overcoat and checked the little box inside. Baby bird Oliver looked up and chirped, snug in his nest, warmed by Henry’s body heat and the tangle of straw in the box. Henry closed the box again, made sure it was securely tucked away, buttoned his coat, and then strode along easily after Day.
58
Sutton Price helped his daughter down the rungs, took a lantern that hung from a hook on the wall, and lit it. Opened the shutter and grabbed Virginia’s hand. He pulled her into the black mouth that led to the warren of tunnels and away from the active seam. He moved along, slow and steady, matching her pace. She seemed unperturbed by the darkness, the damp, the strange echoes of their footsteps that faded away from them under the earth.
At least here it was warm.
Neither of them spoke until they reached a place where the tunnel widened out and formed a sort of unnatural cavern, roughly ten yards around. No digging had been done there in a generation, but it had been inhabited. There was a bedroll, unkempt and dirty, kicked against one wall, and evidence of a recent fire in the center of the room. A thick coil of rope, a stout wooden crate, and three jars of water kept the bedroll company. The entrance to another tunnel across from them led to more tunnels. Between the coal and ashes of the campfire and that other tunnel mouth there was a mound of settled dirt. The mound was six feet by three feet and rounded across the top. Two short sticks had been lashed together in the shape of a cross and stuck into the cavern floor at one end of the mound. A trench had been dug next to the mound, also six feet by three feet. An upright shovel rested against the wall, its blade biting into the dirt floor.
Virginia followed her father around the room by the wall without taking her eyes off the mound of dirt.
Sutton set the lantern on the floor, leaned against the wall, and eased himself down onto the bedroll. He crossed his legs and beckoned to Virginia, and she came to him, sat in his lap. She turned her head so that she could see her father’s face in the flickering lamplight. He smiled down at her, and she smiled back. But there was sadness in his glittering eyes, and Virginia’s forehead creased with worry.
“What’s wrong, Father?”
He stroked her hair and grimaced. Shook his head.
“Is it what I told you?” Virginia said.
“Yes,” Sutton said. “Tell me again what you did.”
“He was coughing, Father. And crying. Keeping everyone awake.”
“Was he?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Is that why. .”
“Well. .”
“Tell me, Virginia.”
The little girl frowned and turned away from him. She scratched her nose. “It’s dusty in here.”
“You get used to it.”
“I don’t want to get used to it. I want to go home and I want you to come home, too.”
“I don’t think we’re going to go home.”
“Don’t be silly, Father. We can’t stay here. It’s filthy.”
“Tell me again.”
“What’s that?” She pointed at the mound across from them. At the tiny cross that marked it.
“It’s there because of a mistake I made.”
“And what’s the hole next to it?”
“That was for me, but I was too much of a coward to lie in it.”
“It would have been fine for Oliver.”
Sutton breathed out heavily through his nose and rubbed his forehead. “It’s my fault. All of this is my fault.”
“Oh, no, Father. Don’t say that. It’s all Hester’s fault, really.”
“What about Oliver?”
“Well, of course it’s his fault, too, but he’s only a baby.”
“What did Hester do?”
“She took Mother away and she made Oliver. She made everything wrong. And then I saw her leave that night with the other man and I knew it was my chance to make things right again.”
“Make things right.” There was no emotion in his face.
“If only you’ll come home,” Virginia said, “then Hester will leave and we’ll be a happy family just as we were meant to be.”
“You can’t have done what you said. You’re lying. You saw something happen and you’ve made up a story about it.”
“I practiced first,” Virginia said. “I took Mr Baggs’s smallest pig, the runt that he was going to kill anyway, and I took it to the woods, and it followed me just exactly like Oliver did.”
“A pig.”
“Yes. And really, Father, the pig was so much harder than Oliver, because it tried to run away from me, and then I got blood all over my best dress. Oliver did just what I told him to, but he was coughing and coughing and so I had to do it to him faster and he got blood on me, too.”
“You murdered your brother.”
Virginia snorted. “He isn’t my brother at all.”
“And you put him in the well. Like rubbish, you tossed him aside.”
“No, Father. He was too heavy for me. Peter and Anna found us and they put him in the well and they said not to tell anyone.” She smiled at him and put her tiny hand on his arm, her knuckles dimpled into the chubby flesh. “But I can tell you because I did it for you.”
“No,” Sutton said. A single tear turned his pale cheek pink and lost itself in his beard.
